Black Magic Woman (6 page)

Of course, she also wasn’t generally inclined to let other people fight her battles for her.

She stepped to the side, just far enough to get a clear view of the situation, but not far enough to give the enraged D’Abo a clear shot at her. She was independent, not stupid.

Her movement caught her champion’s attention. He shifted his gaze from the other man to frown down at her. It wasn’t like Daphanie had never been looked down at before. At five-six she wasn’t exactly short, but most men still stood at least a couple of inches taller. This guy, though, towered over her. He had to top six three, and all of it looked long, lean, and potentially lethal—the kind of man who made a woman’s senses go on high alert. And in Daphanie’s case, sound the alarm.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt the zing of an instant attraction, but there it was, shivering up and down her spine, pulling her shoulder blades together and her tummy in tight. Something about him just sparked it for her, a reaction more powerful than any she remembered from her high school chemistry classes.

He had dark, ash-blond hair cropped ruthlessly short and the sort of weathered face that she had always thought separated the men from the boys. His face looked lived in, as if he’d been through a few bumps in the road and actually bothered to learn from them. His eyes only confirmed that; they were a striking silver gray shot through with sparks of gold and backed by the kind of knowledge that said he’d faced tougher situations than this in his sleep.

Something about that both reassured and unnerved Daphanie. It was nice to know when a man could handle himself, but that ability could cost a man a lot. She couldn’t help wondering about the price this one had paid.

“You should stay behind me,” he rumbled.

Daphanie snapped back to attention, tearing her gaze from his and training it instead on a spot between them, just for the sake of concentration. Staring at him was turning out to be bad for her ability to focus. “Thanks, but I’m not the type to hide behind a big, strong man. In fact, I’m not really the type to hide.”

The man frowned. “Stay behind me,” he repeated.

Okay, he was hot, but a titch single-minded.

Daphanie ignored the order and turned back to D’Abo. She met his enraged scowl squarely and straightened her shoulders. “Look, Mr. D’Abo, we both know that the insulted party here is me. I’m the one who’s been called names and condescended to; you’re just the one who turned an honest mistake into a federal case.

“Now, I don’t know what your childhood trauma is or why you felt the need to blow this whole thing out of proportion, but I can promise you that nothing is going to be made better by encouraging a friend of yours to ‘get me.’ Partly because I’m not an easy girl to get, but mostly because I will have no hesitation in reporting your stupid ass to the police, the Council of Others, the U.S. Army, and the guy in the alley out back with the knife and the .38 in his pants. So let’s just let bygones be bygones, all right?”

Rage stiffened the older man’s form until he trembled like the earth around an impending volcanic explosion. Daphanie almost expected to see his hair rise up off his head like a steam cloud.

Beside her, Asher shifted, bending his head to hers. “You’re not helping.”

“You will pay, girl! I will call Kalfou down on you and let his power deal with your impertinence!”

D’Abo grabbed the arm of his nearest servant and dragged the man forward. Yanking a knife from his belt he slashed the man across the palm, an action that made Daphanie gasp, Asher swear, and no one else so much as blink. If she’d seen a little dog anywhere nearby at that point, Daphanie would have made sure to tell it she didn’t think they were in Kansas anymore.

With rough hands, D’Abo wrenched the man’s hand to the side and let the blood drip to the club’s concrete floor. Dozens of pairs of eyes watched the tiny trickle slide over skin and through air. Daphanie felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up and fought down the urge to take a step back.

“Kalfou, come to the crossroads! Dance in the moonlight! O great Carrefour, sh—”

“Shut. The hell. Up.”

Daphanie shot a quick glance at Asher, which was all she had time for before he reached out an arm and physically pushed her back behind him. In her mind, he seemed to grow in size, muscles rippling and easing until she could have sworn he stood at least three inches taller and broader than he had a minute ago. Then the pleats in his coat stretched again, this time actually splitting to accommodate the emergence of a set of beautifully feathered, enormous white wings.

Holy crap.

The wings easily matched her self-appointed bodyguard in height, the folded joints rising over his shoulders to the top of his head and the tapered tips brushing the middle of his calves. When spread, she imagined they would span well over twenty-five feet. How the hell had he kept something like that hidden?

“You will cease this aggression against the human,” the Guardian intoned, his voice resonating at a pitch Daphanie hadn’t noticed earlier. It seemed to well from not just his body but from the very air and walls around them. It made the bottoms of her feet tingle and she had to fight to keep her gaze from dropping to the floor. That voice had power, even she recognized that, and it wasn’t directed at her. She wondered how D’Abo felt. “She has been taken under Guard, and by the laws of the Others you are forbidden from harming her, Charles D’Abo. Leave this place and this girl and abandon all contact with her. This is commanded to you.”

For the first time, Daphanie saw the edges of fear crowding into D’Abo’s eyes. Caution warred with fury in his expression for several moments, only to be replaced by hatred as he looked away from Asher and focused on Daphanie instead.

“I will raise no hand or
loa
against her,” D’Abo spat, not daring to look again at Asher. He directed all his impotent anger instead at Daphanie. She couldn’t seem to help the shiver he sent chasing down her spine. “But she will come to what she deserves. Mark my words.”

With an impatient gesture to his companions, the affronted man turned and stalked out the club’s door. The crowd parted to let him pass.

Daphanie blew out her tension in a long breath. “Well, that was fun. Not exactly what I had planned for the evening, but…” Shaking her head, she offered Asher a small smile. “Thanks for stepping in. As scenes go, that wasn’t a pleasant one, but I suppose it could have gotten worse. I’m Daphanie, by the way.” She held out a hand. “Daphanie Carter.”

The man just stared at her, still scowling.

“Right.” She dropped her hand and wiped her palm on her jeans. “Well, it was nice meeting you. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

So much for that. The big guy didn’t seem interested in small talk. Which was a pity, since if small talk led to a little flirtation in this case, Daph couldn’t say she would have objected. This Asher guy might be a little intimidating, but he was also smokin’ hot.

She turned to pick up the empty glasses she’d set aside during the confrontation. A hand clamped around her wrist to stop her, sending a deliciously rough shiver from her belly to her knees. She glanced up at her rescuer.

“Come with me.”

Daphanie frowned. Something was different about him, and it wasn’t just that his voice had returned to normal. His expression certainly hadn’t softened. And then she realized it was the wings. Or rather, the lack of them. They had disappeared as unexpectedly as they had been revealed, leaving her with the uneasy feeling of wondering if she’d been the only one who saw them to begin with. Maybe she wasn’t quite as ready to dive into the world of the Others as she had thought.

When she didn’t immediately move to follow Asher, he tugged, gently but firmly, to guide her toward the door. Daphanie shook her head. “Sorry, but I came here with someone. I can’t leave without him. That would be rude.”

Asher snorted. “If you’re referring to the imp, don’t worry. Now come with me.”

Daphanie dug in her heels and returned his scowl with one of her own. She had to clench her teeth to remind herself that sexual attraction was insufficient reason to overlook boorishness.

“Look, I said thank you for sticking up for me with that bully, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you do a little bullying of your own. In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t like being told what to do. So why don’t you let go of my arm and let me go find my friend.”

He ignored her and simply began towing her toward the exit. “Your ‘friend’ is long gone. He skittered away as soon as he saw the first sign of trouble.”

That made Daphanie blink. Quigley had just left her? What if that D’Abo guy had really tried to hurt her? What if Asher hadn’t stepped in? Who knew what might have happened to her?

“Why, that little … imp.”

“Exactly.” Reaching the club’s exit, he pushed her outside and quickly followed, crowding her up against the cement wall at the entrance to the adjoining alley. “So why don’t you tell me what you were thinking coming here with him. Are you crazy? Stupid? What?”

Daphanie stiffened. In addition to the conversational skills of a baboon, he apparently had the manners of one, too. Too bad the way he smelled, all warm and rich and elementally male, made her mouth water every time she drew breath. “At the moment, I’m mostly insulted.”

“Pardon me. I didn’t realize I’d be offending your delicate sensibilities by pointing out the obvious.” He glared down at her, his large frame blocking both her view of the street and most of the light from the nearby street lamps and illuminated signage. “Do you have any idea the kind of danger you were just in?”

“The kind I would have been happy to handle on my own.” She reached up to push him back a step or two and reclaim her personal space, but something inside stopped her. Somehow she imagined touching this man might be a bad thing for her equilibrium. Instead she folded her arms across her chest and contented herself with shooting him a dirty look.

“On your own?” He barked out a dark laugh, one with little connection to humor. “Sweetheart, you were about as far from handling that on your own as it’s possible to be and still remain standing. Do you even know what that was you were doing such a great job of pissing off?”

“Apparently his name is D’Abo and he’s some kind of roaming asshole who doesn’t know an apology from his own fat ass,” she shot back, beginning to resent this conversation. As attractive as she might find this man, she’d pretty much reached her nightly limit for being condescended to. “In fact, the two of you bear a remarkable resemblance. You related?”

“Charles D’Abo,” he informed her with exaggerated patience, “is a witch doctor. He reeks of voodoo, hoodoo, and black magic. I could smell it on him. He was certainly more than you could handle. You’d be better off if you tried a little harder not to make a man like that hate you.”

“I don’t care how that idiot feels about me one way or the other. I make it a practice not to spend time worrying about men with more arrogance than brainpower.”

“Then you might want to change your practices. Men like D’Abo, men like any of those you would find here tonight, any Other you might
ever
find, are not the sorts you want as your enemies.”

“Why? Because he might make a little doll in my image and stick pins in it? Let him. I’m not afraid of that megalomaniac.”

He leaned in closer. “You should be.”

The warm puff of his breath against her skin sent a jolt of electricity through her spine. Daphanie jerked her head back before she could stop herself. Damn him.

“Why?” she demanded, forcing her chin higher. “What’s so dangerous about a charlatan with a god complex?”

“What gave you the idea that he’s a charlatan?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You mean he’s actually a witch doctor? Grass-skirt, bone-through-the-nose, boil-the-white-man-in-a-big-black-cauldron witch doctor?”

“Just how often do you spend your time watching late-night B-movies on television?”

More often than she cared to admit. Especially to him.

“So he really is a witch doctor?”

Asher shook his head. “Did you think I was making this whole thing up? That I had nothing better to do with my night than save the neck of an ignorant human who was too blind to notice when she’d gotten in over her head? Because I assure you, that’s not the case.”

Okay, that stung. Daphanie knew perfectly well that she
was
ignorant when it came to the Others, but that was why she’d allowed Quigley to bring her here—so she could learn. Having someone throw her lack of knowledge in her face didn’t accomplish anything other than making her feel bad. Frankly, it pushed her right to her limit.

Seeing him open his mouth to continue berating her pushed her over.

Boosting herself onto her tiptoes, Daphanie raised her hand and clapped it over his mouth, ignoring the way her palm tingled where it touched his skin.

She leaned in until their faces almost touched and spoke to him very softly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,
sweetheart,
but I’ve had a bitch of a night so far. I ducked out of my sister’s wedding reception, I trusted an imp to introduce me to the wider Others community, I was verbally and very nearly physically assaulted by a jerk with magical powers, and now I’m being lectured by another jerk who apparently gets his kicks by taking a baseball bat to the carcasses of deceased equines.”